to honor people in the community as well as former gang members, the person they honored was chief charlie of the lapd. unless you think that was an anomaly, the year before they honored the sheriff. there is an alliance between community-based organizations, and law-enforcement. this is not enough. there has also been in the streets, ongoing, a relationship, a delicate one, a thoughtful one between the loss angeles police department and gang intervention. interventionists are former gang members. they have to be very careful about how they play out the relationship. they do not want to be snitches. but they want to stop the bleeding. i cannot tell you the complete shock that i have felt as i have sat down with veteran members of the lapd staff, and they talked about the important work of gang intervention. this is not lip service, this is reality. and then i bring up the most important part of collaboration. it has to do with helping young people, whether they are at risk of joining gangs, or if they want to leave gangs. either one, they need help building their identities. they need help